Love is a Friendship Set on Fire
by ScullyGolightly
Summary: Mulder and Scully deal with the aftermath of Wildfire Phoebe


"You smell like smoke."

Scully lifted her arm and sniffed the sleeve of her blazer. "I should just burn these clothes," she said with a sigh. "How long have you been here?"

"A while," said Melissa. "I was hoping we could grab dinner."

Scully shed her jacket and kicked off her heels. "I'm not hungry, but I could use a glass of wine. A big glass," she muttered on the way to her bedroom.

Melissa's eyes lit up at this—maybe her little sister had a good story to tell. "I'll open a bottle," she called out as she headed for the kitchen.

"I'm gonna jump in the shower," Scully called back from the doorway. Her fire-colored hair reeked of smoke as did her skin, and the smell of burning flesh still pervaded her nostrils.

Fifteen minutes later, Scully emerged in a bathrobe, her skin pink and scrubbed, and, now, hopefully lavender-scented. She pushed an unexpected flash of Mulder in a white terry cloth robe and black boxer briefs away from her mind and accepted the glass that Melissa handed to her.

"It's chilly in here. Can I start a fire?"

"No!"

Melissa quirked a Scully-brow at her and set the log back down in the small stack by the fireplace. "Tough day at the office?" she teased, sitting beside Scully on the couch. She tucked her feet under her and arranged the throw blanket over her lap.

Scully took a large sip of her wine and nodded. "A man set a house on fire and then himself."

"Geez," whirred Melissa. "And how's that sexy partner of yours?"

"Missy," Scully groaned. "You don't even know what he looks like."

"I just have a feeling." She shrugged and threw her sister a ribbing glance.

"Oh, so now you can sense how good-looking someone is?" Scully rolled her eyes. "Give me a break."

The smirk did not leave Melissa's lips. "It's not a sense, dear sister. I'm observant. You send a million different messages with your body language when you talk about him."

Scully, irked by that insinuation, locked eyes with Melissa. "First of all, you're ridiculous. And second, I do not."

Melissa was nothing if not stubborn; it was another Scully trait that the sisters shared. "Come on, spill it. We haven't had a good ole gabfest in so long."

"I can admit that I find him good-looking because he is, generally speaking. I think most heterosexual women would find him handsome."

"What about gay men?"

Scully chuckled. "Yes, probably a lot of gay men would agree. Actually, people of any sexuality would, besides lesbians, but even then I think there might be a handful of lesbians out there who would find him attractive."

"Would I fall into that handful?"

"You'll have to let me know if you do, if you ever meet him, which you won't." Scully shuddered to think of the myriad of ways Melissa would find to embarrass her if she ever had the chance to meet her partner. She would probably bring up this very conversation. Better set the record straight. "So, yes, surface-level, I am attracted to him. Obviously, there's more to him than that. He is kind and smart and funny, passionate about his work. I've been able to appreciate all these qualities as his partner. There is a trust that is important for us, for our kind of work, a trust that has no room for romantic feelings. It would jeopardize our partnership and our friendship."

"You're making a pretty good case for him...just sayin'," Melissa pointed out.

"Well, he's not without his faults. He drives me crazy with his theories and his single-mindedness. He can be reckless and inconsiderate. In fact, on this case, he got totally wrapped up with his ex; she manipulated him and he let her. It was infuriating." Her face got warm; she was still angry at Phoebe, maybe at Mulder, too; there were all sorts of unidentifiable emotions somersaulting inside her, and having to explain her partnership to Melissa somehow made things more confusing.

"Ex-partner or ex-girlfriend?" She noticed Scully's reddened cheeks; it was one of the many signs that Melissa had mentioned earlier.

"Girlfriend. And it sounds like she did a number on him. I felt bad for him, like in both ways—I sympathized with him, but I also pitied him, you know what I mean? He followed her around like a sad puppy dog just like she wanted him to. It was a little...pathetic," Scully said, feeling a little pathetic herself for using that word to describe him. Why was verbalizing her thoughts on this so difficult? "She's nothing special, there was no reason for him to act like a jackass."

The wine was really loosening Scully up and she was talkative—Melissa decided to capitalize on it. "How was he a jackass?"

"Like making out with her while he's on assignment," she said, heatedly. "It was utterly irresponsible. The two kids of the family he and Phoebe were supposed to be protecting were nearly killed in a fire. And even though he told me he didn't need me on the case, it was my profile and my lead that cracked it. He was more concerned about getting laid than finding the arsonist." Scully spat all this out and the taste was bitter on her tongue. Her temper surprised her; she hadn't realized she had taken umbrage over the whole incident. During it all, her main concern had been Mulder and helping him to find the suspect. Phoebe's presence made him particularly vulnerable and she had been truly worried about him.

Scully seemed rattled by her own words—confused by them, ignoring the meaning. It was clear to Melissa that it was jealousy, pure and simple jealousy. She wouldn't tell her that, though; her sister would close up so fast, this rare moment of unfettered girl talk would be over. Besides, her sister was smart, sometimes not about her own feelings, but this truth would reveal itself in a way she wouldn't be able to deny. Jealousy is a painful emotion, but it's also helpful, bringing true feelings to the forefront. It was up to the individual to either confront them or disregard them.

"So is he getting back together with her?" It dawned on Melissa that maybe Scully was protecting herself by denying her feelings because Mulder was unavailable to her in that capacity.

"No," Scully said, uncertain. "I don't think so. I think she's breaking his heart all over again." Melissa filled Scully's empty glass with the last of the wine in the bottle and Scully stared into the rich, red depths of it, her own heart breaking a little bit because Phoebe had hurt her friend and he didn't deserve it. It made her sad that he cared enough for this to hurt him; Phoebe wasn't worthy of Mulder's affections or… or his love. God, she hoped his feelings for her didn't run as deep as love. Phoebe didn't respect him or appreciate him like she did—didn't love him like she did. Scully made a quiet gasp. That train of thought had completely run off the rails. Too much wine after an especially rough day had turned her brain to maudlin mush.

"You okay?" Melissa asked.

Scully swallowed and looked up, smiling, putting on a mask. "Yeah, just ...tired." She shook her head to clear her thoughts. "And this wine is working like a sedative." She set the glass down on the coffee table. "Are you staying?"

Melissa drained the rest of her wine and stood. "Nah, I'm gonna get a cab back to Mom and Dad's."

The sisters hugged and said goodbye, Scully admitting that she enjoyed the girl talk and thanking Melissa for it. Scully took the glasses into the kitchen and saw her breakfast dishes in the sink. As tired as she was, she hated waking up to a mess so she turned on the kitchen radio and started to clean up.

"K-WAV 97 bringing you an hour of love songs from the 70s, 80s, and today," the announcer advertised in an over-exuberant radio voice.

_Close your eyes_

_Give me your hand, darling_

_Do you feel my heart beating?_

_Do you understand?_

_Do you feel the same?_

_Am I only dreaming?_

_Is this burning an eternal flame?_

Scully stopped, her hands covered in suds. "You've got to be kidding," she grumbled out loud. "Eternal fucking Flame?" She continued with the dishes and wiped down the counters all while softly singing along, out of tune, in spite of herself.

She got into bed, her eyelids were heavy, it felt good to lie down, but her mind was buzzing, and she had the sensation that her body was buzzing, too, like she could feel the blood pumping underneath her skin. She kicked the covers off in a frustrated huff. She was restless, she was ...horny.

Maybe if she gave herself a good orgasm, she'd be able to sleep. Scully glanced at her nightstand and then cursed herself for forgetting to buy batteries—her hands would have to do. She closed her eyes and conjured up her fantasy du jour, that hunky cowboy robber from _Thelma and Louise_ which she had caught on TV the other night. Brad Pitt's tanned, toned torso hovered above her, his cupid mouth descended on her tits, licking and sucking the soft flesh. Scully cupped herself and squeezed, rolling her nipples between her fingers. She hummed in pleasure, "Mmmm-mmmulder."

Her eyes snapped open. What the fuck?

She could feel the dampness between her legs, her clit was throbbing, her body needed to be tended to, but she hesitated to move after that weird outburst. _Just focus on that sex scene from the movie,_ she told herself. Closing her eyes again, Scully pictured that hot bod, clad only in a snug pair of jeans, standing at the end of her bed. Her movements resumed when her mind's eye saw the face of Brad Pitt with his silky, golden locks atop that body. Relieved, she eased back into her fantasy, her legs squirming as she imagined him grabbing her by the ankles and pulling her toward him.

Her fingers easily slid inside her slick folds, she massaged her labia and her inner walls, rocking her hips against her hand, her other hand fondling her breast. A breathy moan passed her lips. Then the images came at her, rapid-fire, like a porno clip show, but now with Mulder as her co-star. The state she was in made her defenseless against the barrage of visions, and she worked herself into a frenzy as she watched this erotic montage of Mulder taking her every which way from Sunday.

Mulder bending her over the desk in the office. Fingering her as he drives them to some small town in a rental car. On all fours getting pounded from behind. With her skirt hiked up and his head between her thighs. In her bed, using her vibrator on her. Her scrubs down around her feet as he fucks her against the wall of an autopsy bay. What? Where were some of these coming from?

Flashes of him—his hands, his forearms, his stately nose, those intense hazel orbs, his pouty bottom lip. Would he worry her clit like he would a sunflower seed from its shell, pore over the curves of her body with the fine-tuned attention he reserved only for the strange details of an X-file? What was his cock like? Was it long and slender or wide with girth? Did it have that curvature that would help him to hit her G-spot just right? She had four of her fingers bunched together, fucking herself, trying to imitate what this hypothetical perfect penis of his would do to her.

"Fuck me, fuck me, fuck me," she panted, chanting to her imaginary lover who took the form of her real-life work partner. Her orgasm surprised her with its intensity and when his name escaped her throat, it lingered there on her lips like something sugary, something sweet. It made her partially, briefly, deaf—there was an echoing hollow in her ears then a ringing. Orgasms had done that to her before but it was rare and it usually wasn't achieved by just using her fingers on herself, it usually required the use of a toy or a human penis with the right heft and size.

The underwater sounds faded but the ringing persisted. It took her several more seconds to realize it was the phone. The phone was ringing. It was 1am on a weeknight. It was Mulder. The very person who had just made her come so strongly that she went temporarily deaf. She picked up the receiver with her left hand, her right hand still inside her pussy. "Hello?" she croaked, hoping she sounded sleepy, not shamefully sated from featuring him in her fantasy.

"Scully, it's me. Sorry to wake you."

"That's okay, Mulder." Her voice was too high, wasn't it?

"I was reading your profile and it's really good. You did some good work on this case. You solved it, actually. I just wanted to say thanks ...and to apologize."

"Apologize for what?" Scully tucked the phone to her ear and grabbed a tissue to wipe her sticky fingers, silently sending him an apology of her own.

"For my behavior. I let Phoebe get into my head and ...well, you picked up my slack even when I told you I didn't need your help. I think that was my first mistake."

"Oh, um, it ...it was my pleasure." She smacked her forehead with her palm. Did she really just say that? "I mean, we're partners. I didn't have anything else to work on, so…"

Scully gripped the phone, the hand that was just inside her was right by her face now and she could smell the residual scent of cum on her fingers. Then she heard his voice and the combination of senses sent a jolt of arousal through her. She begged to God, to any higher power, that she did not get turned on again while she was on the phone with him.

"She played me for a fool, Scully. I had been burned by her so many times before, and I fell for it. Really gives meaning to the term "old flame," doesn't it?"

"Don't beat yourself up. I could tell she was a master manipulator right off the bat. She knew just the right buttons to press. It happens to the best of us."

"To you?"

"Sure. Caring about another person exposes our vulnerabilities and sometimes people use them against us or to their advantage. I hate that she did that to you, Mulder. It was mean."

"She was so rude to you, too. I'm sorry I got us roped into it."

"It's okay," she assured him. "Really."

"All right. I'll see you tomorrow. Goodnight, Scully."

"Night, Mulder."

Mulder hung up, set the cordless phone down, and looked at his lap—at his half-hard dick that was swelling beneath the fabric of his sweatpants. He sighed. Scully's voice often had this effect on him, especially when it was over the phone in the middle of the night. It was probably his imagination, but her voice seemed particularly husky tonight, more sexy than usual.

Or it could be that he was craving the touch of a woman. This brief rekindling with Phoebe reminded him how much he missed intimacy. Not that they ever had a loving relationship—it had been toxic from beginning to end; he had been cheated on by her more than once, gaslit and mind-fucked to the point of mental abuse—but these fleeting moments of sexual closeness and possibility had stirred the longing in his soul. He had been an idiot to think those feelings were for Phoebe. She was familiar to him in that role, the one of a lover, so he associated those thoughts with her, but they were already reserved for someone else.

Mulder's crush on his partner had started at their first meeting and steadily grew with each passing day. He knew it was hopeless, that he could ruin the best partnership he had ever had by admitting these feelings, or worse, acting on them, and he was fairly certain that there wouldn't be reciprocation on Scully's side. He just chalked it up to something he would have to suffer through until it passed, when they got to the point where their friendship and their trust became too important for him to entertain such naive thoughts.

Then Phoebe had shown up and he redirected these romantic notions towards her, hoping to relieve some of this stress he had brought upon himself. But Phoebe was her normal awful self and Scully was her normal wonderful self, and he found he was right back where he started—a fool pining for something that could not be. Phoebe's appearance really just acted like an accelerant thrown onto his existing burning desire for Scully.

At present, Mulder physically felt that burning in his loins, his erection hard and pulsating. He scooted his pants down, the elastic waistband tight around his upper thighs, and gripped his cock. Accessing the file cabinet in his mind where he kept his sexual fantasies, he opened the drawer labeled "Dana Scully." This drawer was stuffed full and overflowing, while the others were practically bare and sporting cobwebs, some holdovers from his extensive porn-watching days and the decommissioned drawer of exes.

Seeing Phoebe in that evening gown had brought up a memory of a ball he had gone to with her and her family. She had pressured him into fooling around in the coat check room. He didn't want to; her parents had been very nice and gracious to him and he was trying to be on his best behavior. But, Phoebe was a bulldozer when it came to the things that she wanted and she had wanted to get caught being naughty to get the attention of her father. Mulder hadn't realized that until after the humiliating incident.

And, of course, she had also reminded him of their graveyard romp, calling it a youthful indiscretion, but it was another instance of her pushing him to do something he wasn't keen on to begin with. She wanted a bad boy and thought she could mold him into one exactly to her desired specifications. It was a game to her, all of it. So, yeah, he fucked her up against the famous literary scribe's headstone. He had thought it was romantic at the time, thought that she wanted him that badly and that they would be this sexy, sleuthing duo, sharing a private amorous adventure, an erotic inside joke. Instead, he became the joke when Phoebe told anyone with ears what they had done. She had thought it gave her cred, made her provocative and interesting.

That was one of her major faults—she tried too hard to be interesting ...and she just wasn't. The way she had introduced the case to them with that cassette tape was another example of it. And kissing him right in front of Scully was obnoxious. Scully was sexy and interesting and she didn't even have to try. These "youthful indiscretions" Phoebe had dredged up from their fucked up past would not be used as masturbation fodder tonight or ever. In fact, Mulder couldn't remember a time when those memories had aroused him, they just made him angry or sad.

Right now he was a mix of angry and sad ...and horny. He was angry that he had let Phoebe play with his emotions again, sad that Phoebe (and to some extent, himself) had made Scully to feel left out when she had done all the hard work, and horny because ...well, because of who Dana Scully was—a kind, smart, funny woman who also happened to be smoking hot.

Mulder could've sworn he had caught her looking at his crotch when he was in his underwear back at the hotel. He had awoken to her sitting beside him on the bed with a look of caring concern on her face. And then he had been a total ass and asked about Phoebe immediately. Not about the kids who had been trapped in a burning room, but firestarter herself, Phoebe fucking Greene. What must Scully have thought of him? That he only cared about reigniting things with this old flame, not about the case or the lives at stake.

This line of thinking led him to the fantasy he would use to extinguish this fire within him now. What if he hadn't been a selfish, dejected chump when he woke up in that bed? What if Scully's looks to him had meant something? What if instead of getting up and putting on the robe, he had taken Scully in his arms, bringing her down on top of him while passionately kissing her perfect lips?

He imagined her responding to the kiss, opening her mouth and letting his tongue slip in, her body melting into him like warm wax. Maybe she would even moan his name. "Mmmm-mmmulder," Fantasy Scully hummed before pushing her tongue past his lips to tussle with his.

She would help him rid her of her clothes, wanting to feel skin on skin as badly as he did. Then she would straddle him, her tight little ass in black lace underwear, no, wait, white cotton panties, would press against his throbbing cock. He was still wearing his boxers, but he could feel her pussy, wet and hot, through both layers of their clothing.

Mulder grunted alone in his living room as he stroked himself, wanting desperately to know what it would feel like to have that wet heat sink down around him. As if anticipating his need, Fantasy Scully lowered herself onto him, taking him in inch by inch, until he filled her completely. Then she began to ride him, her spectacular tits bouncing in front of him. And he would sit up, hug his arms around her, and nestle his face between them. What he would give to taste the salty sweat from her skin or to wrap his lips around a hardened nipple.

His fist pumped faster around his length and he was moaning steadily now; he probably sounded like a dying cow, but he was unable to quell the enthusiastic noises coming out of him. This fantasy had become especially vivid and his dick was so hard, bordering on painful, he felt like he was about to explode.

"Come inside me, Mulder," she whispered wantonly in his ear.

He obeyed this illusion of his partner and came violently, his hips jerking up off the sofa as he squeezed himself root to tip, trying to mimic what her plush, vice-like cunt would be like, milking him dry. "Sc- Sc- Scul-leeee!" he cried out in a sharp staccato, the sound echoing in his lonely apartment.

His body went lax, his limbs felt like jelly. "Jesus Christ," he muttered, amazed by the magnitude of his climax. If he could come that hard just by fantasizing about her, actually having real-life sex with her might kill him. He would gladly take that risk, though, if ever given the chance.

_Don't be an idiot,_ he admonished himself. Getting his hopes up like that was exactly what he needed to avoid. All this shit with Phoebe had propelled him deeper into his infatuation with Scully—just add it to the list of transgressions against him for which she was responsible. He glanced down at his hand, a trickle of his arousal was draped, glistening, across his knuckles. Groaning, he sat up and looked around so he could begin the shameful process of cleaning up after mentally defiling his partner. He peeled off his sweats—now they needed to be washed—and used them to wipe up the traces that had made it to the floor.

_Geez, that's a lot of cum,_ he thought, then his mind, unbidden, flickered images of him filling Scully's pussy with his seed, or her mouth, or spurting it across her chest- _What the fucking fuck?! Pull yourself together, man._ His dick twitched in anticipation of a possible second round and he looked down at it sternly. "No," he said out loud. "Absolutely not." There wasn't much time now for him to distance himself from this disgraceful scene, to be able to face her at work in the morning, without setting himself on fire from the inside out with his flaming remorse.

"Care to take me to lunch?"

His heart lurched out of his chest as he swiveled his head toward the door. Scully was standing there with a cheeky smirk on her face, looking positively breathtaking, by the way, more beautiful than she had any right to on a drab Wednesday morning.

"Scare you?"

"You have no idea," he said with a chuckle meant to hide his actual panic that Phoebe might turn up again. He took his glasses off and settled back into his chair.

Scully shut the door. "Where is Phoebe?" she asked, trying and failing to appear nonchalant about it.

"I don't know."

"You don't know." She was grilling him—she couldn't help herself. "She didn't call?"

"No. She did messenger this to me last night, though," he said, holding up a cassette tape.

"Did you play it?" _Let's play it and then burn it,_ she suggested silently.

"No."

"Why not?" Her eyes drilled into him. "Aren't you curious what's on it?" _Please say no._

"Ten to one you can't dance to it."

Scully looked at him, uneasiness alit in the pit of her stomach. It was a Mulder-esque way of saying no. He seemed okay, like he was moving on from Phoebe and the mess she had tried to make. Then why did she still feel like she was on unstable ground? Perhaps it was the torrid sex fantasy she had masturbated to last night. She hadn't let herself explore the meaning of it yet—she was afraid.

Mulder stood and threw the tape in the trash. Scully stared at it. "Are you curious?" he asked, standing alarmingly close to her, his voice low and seductive.

"No," she said softly. _Liar, liar, pants on fire._ Her cheeks were burning; she couldn't bring herself to look up at him, so she settled on a spot in the middle of his chest and licked her lips.

Her tongue darting out so sensuously had the effect on him like being doused with cold water. What was he thinking playing with matches like this? Especially after his libido's performance the night before. He couldn't flirt with her to the point of no return—he needed to rein himself in.

Mulder stepped back. Scully made eye contact with him. _Cool down,_ they told themselves; mutually declaring a cease-fire.


End file.
